Physics Games
Physics games on this site mean one thing: the body you control follows momentum instead of an input map. There is no walk key and no steering, so the skill is predicting where a simulated body will end up rather than executing a combo. This category collects the titles on Wave Rider that work that way.
Right now the shelf holds one game, Noomiclone, and it asks for four keys in total.
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What Makes A Physics Game Different From A Game With Controls
In most browser games the input is the skill: press left, move left. A physics game moves the input one step back, so you set a pose and then watch a simulated body decide how far that gets you.
Noomiclone makes the difference visible in one screen. A gymnast hangs from a bar, and none of the keys move him anywhere. The left arrow arches his back, space tucks his knees, the up arrow lets go and R resets the attempt. Everything after the release belongs to the simulation, including a landing you did not choose. Learn those four keys in a minute and spend the next hour learning when to press them.
That is a harder game to learn than a control map, and a fairer one to lose. When a swing falls short there is usually a frame you can point at.
Noomiclone: The One Physics Game On This Shelf
Matthew Jones publishes the game on Google Play as NoomiClone Dev, and the mobile release has been out since December 2020. The browser build is the newer of the two and still marked in development at version 0.9.
It is free to play, with ads and skins that unlock through the regrab counter or NoomiCoins. Neither sits between you and a run on this page.
- Left arrow arches, space tucks, up arrow lets go, R resets. The player page's key hint bar and the itch.io entry list the same four.
- The official move set runs tuck, pike, arch, layout, squat, twist both ways, flash kick, stuck landing and bar regrab.
- On mobile the game ships 12 bar maps and 6 tumbling maps, so the bar is not the only thing to learn.
Physics Games FAQ
Are the physics games here free?
Noomiclone costs nothing in the browser. The phone release carries ads and paid skins, and neither is needed to play.
Do I need to download a physics game?
No. The web build is Unity WebGL inside the page, so pressing play is the install. iOS and Android versions exist as separate apps if you would rather have one on the home screen.
Do physics games work on a phone?
The web build adds matching touch buttons on both sides of the screen, and the mobile app has kept shipping since 2020, most recently at version 2.3.2.